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around Flathead Lake, camping its shores and fishing its prolific waters. The Kootenai even designed “sturgeonnosed” canoes, with the ends flared into underwater snouts, to better handle the sometimes-turbulent lake waters. Today, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes work with Montana agencies to manage and preserve the health of the lake, ensuring that countless future generations can continue to camp, fish, boat, and live on this beautiful body of water.
PHOTO CREDIT: SKY VAULT
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his shimmering gem is the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi, with almost 200 square miles of water and a 185-mile shoreline. The growing communities of Lakeside and Somers sit on the northwest shore of the lake; Polson, the commercial hub for the east shore’s cherry industry, anchors its southern tip. Before any of these towns existed, untold generations of Salish, Kootenai, and Pend d’Oreille People traveled
